Laura Leddy
Archaeology of College Hill, Prof. K. Ryzewski
Critical Response #3 (Response 7)
8 November 2010
This week’s readings dealt with archaeology and cultural preservation as digital
processes and practices. Despite the current problems and inconsistencies associated
with the publication and sharing of data via digital resources, Addison, Lucas, Lewi, and
Roussou on the whole support it to document and make more widely accessible the
information gleaned from cultural and heritage research. They offer interesting and
extremely applicable points of consideration in regards to our excavation at the John
Brown House.
In his article The Vanishing Virtual: Safeguarding heritage’s endangered digital
record, Alonzo C. Addison emphasized the need for open communication between both
different parties of researchers, from those actually visiting the site to take digital
surveys to those who rely on reports to conduct their own analyses (university students
being one such example). He calls for greater coordination of documentation efforts—
not only for greater efficiency in recording what may be lost to time or unforeseen
future destructive processes (war, natural disasters, looting, etc), but also because a
wider spectrum of perspectives “… is in many ways beneficial, leading to diversity of
data, ideas, and interpretations” (Addison 30). If such communication structures were
established, then mishaps (such as his anecdote about multiple teams unknowingly
documenting the same aspect of the Angkor Wat) could be avoided and more research
ground could be covered. What needs to happen is the development of a standard
system of recording, aggregating, and sharing digitized research. This is not only quite
feasible (due to the flexibility of most digital media) but would save time and research
efforts—at its simplest, if a registry (of sorts) of what is already known is made available
to everyone who needs data on a particular subject in that group, then time does not
need to be spent re-doing what has already been done and energy and money can go
into new research. Copyright laws (or the increased prevalence of “copyleft” policies)
would do better to be flexible to the changing needs of researchers in a digital age. As
Addison succinctly puts it, “If our digital efforts are to out live the heritage they are
meant to record and protect, we must actively work to share data, work together and
document our documentation” (Addison 37). I agree very strongly with the points made
in this article, and feel that collaboration is imperative if we are to attempt to definitively
preserve and classify our cultural heritage resources, particularly in light of the fact that
what’s here today might not be here tomorrow.
Maria Roussou’s article The Components of Engagement in Virtual Heritage
Environments discussed the potential of Virtual Heritage (VH), a discipline at the
intersection of Virtual Reality (VR) and cultural heritage. She argues, “…virtual heritage
productions may be ideal in responding to a need for a fashionable synergy between
scientific enquiry, technology, art, and everyday life, and, consequently, influence more
serious cultural demand” (Roussou 226). VH’s “preoccupation with representation” to
truthfully reduplicate a site or artifact is mind-bogglingly useful—as archaeology is a
science based on questions, hypotheses, and interpretation, digital preservation of an
artifact or site not only allows for ease of transmission but also closely observed
research from anywhere in the world. VH in right in line with the multi-disciplinary
approach to presenting research, for the benefit of researchers of any level of interest—
from professionals to those with a casual interest—who don’t have direct access to a site
or artifact, and their engaging nature may do well to foster cultural interest and concern
for preservation: “…VH productions are in a position to pave the way for a widespread
acceptance of the technology and, provided they are designed carefully, to serve as
indisputable means to disseminate knowledge and raise public awareness” (Roussou
226).
While Addison and Roussou focused on the practical applications of digital
techniques to archaeology and heritage documentation, the articles by Lewi and Lucas
focused on the presentation of material as considered through the lens of “traditional”
presentation methods. I thought Lewi’s discussion of the virtual museum in Perth was
fascinating—particularly the fact that they not only digitized a collection and made its
information available online, but that they crafted a virtual architectural space to house
it all. Well done to whoever came up with that; this project was well-planned and welldesigned. I think this is a valuable innovation—many of the positive aspects of museum
experience are preserved, and anyone with Internet access can afford to partake of it.
This sort of democratization of archaeology, particularly because it sometimes has the
reputation of being a stuffy and aloof science (perhaps due to its beginnings as a rich
man’s pastime and its heavy reliance on conjecture and interpretation?), is I think I
wonderfully engaging for anyone, and very useful to foster awareness and concern for
heritage preservation among the general public. Lucas honed in primarily on
classification and how its design should satisfy two sides—scientific researchers on one
hand, and amateurs looking to learn on the other.
The questions raised and advice offered by these articles is of the highest
relevance and applicability to our work at the John Brown House. Within our class,
communication between units, having a standard method of recording and
documenting, and referencing site reports written by previous ARCH1900 students all
serves to create a unified record of the work done at this site. Taking advantage of varied
forms of documentation (photographing, video-recording, blogging, note-taking) allow
for multiple sets of records both online and off, and collaboration with the Rhode Island
Historical Society and other related endeavors (such as the Greene Farm Project) serves
to make what we’re learning accessible to related parties and works toward the higher
goal of creating a consistent, accurate-as-possible, easily accessible record of Rhode
Island history and culture. By making this information available online, it can be used
not only by the Brown University community and RIHS members but also by anyone
researching on these topics, and our collaborative efforts make it such that what we are
presenting is whole, organized, and cohesive.
Works Cited
1. Addison, Alonzo C. 2008 The Vanishing Virtual: Safeguarding heritage's
endangered digital record. In Y. Kalay, T. Kvan, and J. Affleck, New Heritage: New
Media and Cultural Heritage, 27-39.
2. Lucas, Gavin. 2001 Chapter 3, "Splitting Objects", In Critical Approaches to
Fieldwork. Routledge: London, pgs. 64-106.
3. Lewi, Hannah. 2003 Designing a Virtual Museum of Architectural Heritage. In S.
Kane, ed., The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in a Global Contest, 261-274.
4. Roussou, Maria. 2003 The Components of Engagement in Virtual Heritage
Environments. In S. Kane, ed., The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in a Global
Contest, 225-241.